Ground and buildings
Structures and objects
The Structures & objects section of the inventory has nearly 300 models from every level, in 16 categories: fences and walls, security and military, towers, industrial, underground, vehicles, furniture and more. Each category shows how many there are, and how many this level already has.
Hover a category and its list opens beside the panel, each entry with its picture from above and a 3D card. Click the category, or Pin, to keep the list open. Typing in the inventory's search box lists every match instead.
A model the level does not have is marked import. When you apply, the studio copies it in from the level that has it, with its parts and textures.
Placing a building
Pick it, and a see-through preview follows the pointer at its true size. The preview tells you whether it can stand there:
| Preview | When | A click |
|---|---|---|
| Green, level ground | The ground under it varies less than 1 m | places it |
| Amber, uneven | 1 to 3 m | places it, sunk into the slope |
| Red, too steep | more than 3 m | is refused |
| Red, overlaps | it runs into another building or a tall prop | is refused |
Alt+click places a refused building anyway. With a building in hand the map is tinted where it would not fit: yellow for uneven, red for too steep. B shows the same tint without one.
A real building you place gets the ground under it levelled when the mission is built, the way the game's level designers did it: its footprint and a narrow apron are set to one height, easing back into the land around. A dashed apron on the map marks it. Level the ground under it in its panel switches this off.
Fences and walls
Fences and walls chain: each click adds a panel that starts where the last one ended and points at the pointer, in 15° steps (Alt for any angle). A new run snaps onto the end of a fence nearby. C starts a new run. Panels meet exactly, with no gap between them in the game.
A fenced compound
Right-click open ground and choose Build a fenced compound here...: a chain-link fence or a masonry wall round a rectangle you size, a gate on the side facing the player's start (two sliding leaves and a switch to open them), a floodlight, watchtowers, and up to four guards inside, looking out. The ground under it is levelled. It is made of your own pieces, selected as one group, so you can move it, turn it, or change any part.
Groups, copy and paste
- Select a group: Shift+drag a box round your things, or Shift+click to add or drop one. Ctrl+A selects all your changes.
- Work on it: drag any member to move them all. Arrows nudge it, R and T turn it about its centre, G sets it on the ground, Ctrl+D duplicates it, Delete removes it.
- Copy and paste: Ctrl+C, then Ctrl+V at the pointer, in this mission or any other, on any level.
- Save as group... keeps it in the inventory under Saved groups, to stamp it again in any mission.
Shaping the ground
The Ground bar on the right of the map has the tools. Each opens its panel beside the bar.
| Tool | What it does | How |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Flattens an area at one height | Drag a rectangle, or click for a 12 m patch |
| Raise, Lower | Lifts or sinks an area by so many metres | Drag; Round for an ellipse |
| Smooth | Evens out bumps, keeping the lie of the land | Drag |
| Ramp | An even slope between two heights | Drag from the bottom of the slope to the top |
| Brush | Raises, lowers, smooths or erases freehand | Hold the button and drag |
| Paint | Changes what the ground is made of | Pick a material and drag |
- Every shaped area is a card in the panel: Go there, See it in 3D, Remove it. Drag an area on the map to move it; its card has its size, turn, shape and edge.
- The edge eases the new ground into the old over a few metres, so an area reads as land, not as a drawn shape.
- Areas apply in order, each on the ground the ones before it left. The contour lines, the relief and every height in the studio follow at once.
- Nothing is left floating. The ground never changes under something standing on it: buildings, walls, crates, vehicles, pickups and the player start keep their ground. The panel and the check list say what is in the way, so you can move it first.
The game's limit
The game can move its ground about 4 m up or down from the level's own. An area that asks for more is shaped as far as it goes, and the panel and the check list say so. Hills and gullies are small ones.
Painting the ground
Paint changes what the ground is made of: pick one of the level's own materials (grass, dirt, rock, snow, as the level has them), set the size, and drag over the map. Erase takes paint off. Hover a material to see that ground in the level's own texture.
Next: the 3D close-up.